For mine Beazer is playing on the fact that Bush and the republicans are going to get a wake up call come november.With that the U.S. will start to withdraw its troops, and unwind their involvemnt in Iraq.So in other words it is American foriegn policy Beazly will,just like the conservatives,be following.

As for the High Court and any decision,to that I would say so what!Beasly will have no choice in this matter,and will if he wants to stay as P.M. do as he's told.You think I am joking? No, I am serious, all of the myths propagated by the wingnuts ref the union movement running the Australian Labor Party,will this time have some grain of truth to them.

Phill,
the ALP under Latham was going to pull the troops out from Iraq by Xmas. He took a battering for that. Now the tide is flowing his way away from the little Americans in the ALP.

Phill,
it is suprising isn't it. Any consistent reading of the polls shows that Labor has been ahead for the past six months. But the public perception of Labor hasn't changed---basically, most people still believe pretty firmly that Kim Beazley will lose the next election.

The ALP is way behind because the expectation is that the Government's going to win. It is expected to win because the issues of economic and national security are still seen as the Federal Coalition Government’s big strengths. And they are still the issues that bite in those marginal electorates where elections are won or lost.

I think that one problem is that Beazely has not pulled the bits together to present an alternative story, a narrative or a credible message that Australia needs change to become a better place.

I agree with your last paragraph Gary absolute!My main concern in the coming battle, is that home interest rates are always going to be the Albatross around the A.L.P.'s neck.Howard (and I hate him so)has been an expert at laying the blame,and still does in some cases, the past ills of Australia's economy at the feet of Keating.He will keep reminding the mums and dads who are mortgaged up to their bollicks,that Labor is code for "Mortgage foreclosure" That people are now paying more for their homes because this government has let house prices spiral out of control, will be lost on the working class.

But the real problem Beazly is going to have to overcome,is the resourses boom.That unskilled workers in the north of W.A. can earn 100 grand a year!!!!!!! Who needs the Labor Party?

As an aside I saw the Beazer interviewed Tony Jones on Late Line last week the topic is irrelelevant, that he must have(and NO Im not kidding)consumed 10 gallons of water,was not lost on me,his nervous disposition stuck out like dog's balls.Like others I thought Labor was going to bolt the next election,but alas with the Beazer it aint gonna happen.I am sure he is a nice man,however in my opinion he aint got it.Howard aint got it!but I will leave the reasons for his sucess to more intelligent pudits than I.

Phill,
That interpretation of the interview sounds like a 'Beazley has no ticker' account.

Robert Manne in an op ed in The Age says that:

Keating also had a powerful story - of a republican and multicultural Australia, reconciled with its indigenous population, at ease in Asia and at home in a globalising world - after the 1996 defeat of Labor this story could no longer work....The Keating vision divided the two most basic constituencies of Labor - the workers and the professional middle-class. It appealed deeply to the left-leaning "elites" but repelled large numbers of "ordinary people". Beazley abandoned the story shortly after gaining the Labor leadership.

That's pretty right. Hence the vacuum.